It's Such a Shame For Us to Part
by How Clever of You
Summary: In which Scott and Allison leave their newborn daughter with Isaac and Stiles. Prequel to "Come Up To Meet You (Tell You I'm Sorry)." Isaac/Stiles.


check me out on a03 under the same name for quicker updates and more stories! as always, for my favorite pole mal

* * *

"Come to bed," Isaac says from the doorway. Stiles is sitting in the rocking chair next to the crib, Victoria swaddled against the crook of his arm. He looks up, then back down, but doesn't move. Isaac wishes he could still count the number of nights he's woken up to find the other side of the bed empty, but he can already tell that this night is going to be different.

"She's so small," Stiles whispers. He's crying and Isaac hates when he does that because it means everything isn't okay. He crosses the room and drops down to rest his chin on Stiles' knee. Stiles stops rocking the chair so he doesn't jostle Isaac too hard, but his other leg still shakes. "How could they leave her? She's so small."

Isaac locks his hands around Stiles' ankle, loose enough so it doesn't get claustrophobic (and maybe he needs to stop trying to treat other people's claustrophobia when it's his he needs to learn to control), and sighed. He can hear the undercurrent of the question so when Stiles speaks again it doesn't come as a surprise.

"It's not fair that they left us. It's not fair that they left her _with_ us. She isn't ours, she isn't our responsibility… why didn't they leave her with Melissa or with Chris? Why us?" Isaac doesn't say anything because they both know why. They both know why Melissa and Chris have disappeared off the map and why Scott had given Victoria to Stiles, crying and saying he needed to go. They don't know why Scott went, but they know why Victoria didn't.

"Imagine Derek taking care of her," he says, grinning against Stiles' knee, but it fades when Stiles doesn't smile back.

They live in Scott's old house, the one where Melissa disappeared from. Isaac knows that one day the wolves will sniff out the baby and that he'll die protecting her, and protecting Stiles, but he _knows_ they'll be found eventually, so why should they trade a little bit of safety for comfort? It's only been two months since Scott left and Isaac would rather be sleeping in a bed than in the grass and bathing in a shower instead of a stream out somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Two months is eight weeks and eight weeks is fifty-six days and Isaac is glad he's gotten to spend his fifty-six days heating up Victoria's bottles in the microwave and playing Halo on the XBOX with Stiles. But sometimes he's scared two months is going to stretch into two more months and four months is going to stretch into eight and one day he's going to wake up and Victoria is going to be calling him Dad and Stiles Pops, or Papa and Father, or something of the sort, and he didn't want to have _one_ dad, let alone two.

He wonders what Scott will think when he comes back and finds Stiles sleeping in Isaac's bed. Maybe they wouldn't have survived on their own, the one who loved Scott and the one who Loved Scott, so maybe it was just inevitable. Though Isaac isn't sure he loves Scott as much as he thought he did. Not like that. He thinks maybe Stiles is who he needed after all.

(But he can still sometimes feel the love for Scott in Stiles' touch, screaming _you're only second to me_, and it makes Isaac wish that their love had been more than brotherly because then maybe Stiles would be able to get over it. He wants to be Stiles' first so much that it's a physical ache in his chest.)

"I could deal with the werewolves," Stiles says. "I could deal with the Kanima and the Alphas, but not a _baby_. I could drop her and she could die. I could go into a sugar coma and not feed her and it'll be _my fault_ that she's dead. I didn't get the joys of procreation, so why am I getting the punishment?"

Isaac knows he doesn't mean it, not all of it. He's seen how Stiles looks at Victoria like she's hung the moon, and he's heard him sing to her at bath time, and when he puts her to bed at night, he whispers, "I love you, my little pup," against her forehead.

Victoria reaches up and touches his bottom lip with her miniature fingers and Stiles' face quivers and breaks. Isaac adjusts his grip on Stiles' leg, cheek pressed up against the side of his knee, and focuses on taking away some of Stiles' pain. He watches the trails of black shoot up his veins before Stiles shoves his knee up and knocks Isaac's teeth together. Isaac jumps away and brings his hand up to his face.

"That's _my_ pain," Stiles says in a shaky voice. "Don't you dare."

"Come to bed," Isaac says again. His hand drops away from his chin and he stands up. Stiles doesn't move, so he says, "Knock knock," because he's awful at jokes and it always makes Stiles laugh.

He doesn't say anything for a long time and Isaac is starting to ache, but then he finally goes, "Who's there?"

"Hatch."

"Hatch who?" He can see Stiles' mouth is straining against a smile.

"Bless you." Stiles laughs so loud that Victoria startles and he puts a hand on her stomach to reassure her.

"That's so f – that's so stupid," he says, but he's smiling now, so Isaac is happy. He leans down and takes Victoria from Stiles, and Stiles starts to make a noise of protest, but Isaac shakes his head.

"She's coming with."

Isaac leads him down the hall to what used to be the guest room. Neither of them felt right sleeping in Melissa's room and Scott's room has the crib. But now the guest room has bed sheets that Stiles picked out and a bookcase full of comics and sci-fi novels and the closet is full of plaid button-downs and graphic tee shirts. Isaac has all of his sweaters and knits in the bottom drawer of the dresser and a shoebox of his father's things tucked underneath the bed.

But the bedroom is still a guest room because they're only guests in the house that used to be Melissa McCall's.

Isaac lays down on the right side and shifts the pillows a little closer together so Victoria can lie between them. Stiles gets under the blankets and stares down at Victoria.

"What if they don't come back?" he asks quietly.

"Then she's ours."

"I don't want her to be ours. I want to give her toys and gifts but I don't want her to be ours. I don't want to be the one who messes her up." Victoria catches his finger in her tiny fist.

"What makes you think she's going to be messed up?" Isaac touches Victoria's blubbery knee. "She's Scott and Allison's daughter. She's strong. And do you really think out of the two of us you're more messed up than I am?"

Stiles reaches over Victoria and grips Isaac's arm, then moves it up to cup his cheek. Isaac shifts into the touch and closes his eyes.

"Don't say that," Stiles says. "C'mon, Isaac."

Isaac turns his face slightly to kiss Stiles' palm. "We'll do good together," he says. "We'll – if you're half, and I'm half, together we're whole, right?"

Stiles smiles and Isaac instantly feels lighter.

"Yeah," he says, and touches his thumb against the side of Isaac's mouth, tracing the smile as it grows. "Together we're whole."


End file.
